WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: HidingTurtle
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◈ Raised by a Ruthless Swordsman ◈
Chapter 43: Wine Cups
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The five characters left my lips before I could stop them.
“What is Four Ounces Deflect a Thousand Pounds?”
Only then did Wi Jin-ak push his sabre back into its sheath. He looked at me once, then let out a soft breath of laughter.
“This is not a conversation to have while standing.”
As I wondered what he meant, Wi Jin-ak started toward his room and continued.
“Wait here. There is something I should bring.”
What could he be bringing at this hour? As I stood in the courtyard without understanding, Wi Jin-ak soon returned with something in his arms. He held a bottle of wine and two cups.
“You have crossed into a new realm. An occasion like this calls for a drink.”
He said it with his usual impassive face and set the bottle down at the edge of the porch.
I had thought him an unflappable man, but I had not known he kept wine in his room and drank it. Then again, no one could live with only a blade in hand.
Perhaps, just as I had developed a taste for fishing, he had developed a taste for wine.
Still, there was no need to celebrate. I did not particularly feel like being congratulated, but it would have been strange to refuse after he had already brought it out.
Deciding to accept the gesture at least, I went to the well.
I drew up water with the bucket and poured a dipperful over my head. Cold water over my sweat-soaked body made me feel much refreshed. After wetting my throat with what remained, I roughly wiped my wet hair and returned to the porch.
Wi Jin-ak had already filled the cups. When I sat beside him, he passed me a cup filled to the brim.
Wi Jin-ak must have offered that wine in celebration. Yet I received it only with empty hands.
What did it matter if I had crossed into another realm? The reason I had clung to the sword for ten years in the mountains, the reason my sword had advanced another measure today, was all for the sake of the one home I wished to return to.
I swallowed down the thoughts raising their heads again with a mouthful of wine. The strong liquor slid down my throat and warmed my belly.
“So, this Four Ounces Deflect a Thousand Pounds.”
When I returned to the matter at hand, Wi Jin-ak slowly began to speak.
“With four ounces of force, one may govern a thousand pounds...”
He raised his cup and drained it in one gulp. Setting down the empty cup, he continued casually.
“I heard it was propounded by Zhang Sanfeng.”
“Zhang Sanfeng?”
When I repeated the unfamiliar name, Wi Jin-ak stopped with the bottle tilted in his hand and stared at me.
“Zhang Sanfeng was the grandmaster who established the sword art you use, and also the founder of Wudang.”
I calmly endured the look in his eyes, as though asking whether I did not know my own roots. I had grown used to such things by now. Ever since coming down from the mountain, I had been treated as some country bumpkin who knew nothing of the world more than once or twice.
Still, Zhang Sanfeng.
Until now, I had never considered that someone must have first created the Sword Path I had practiced for ten years. I had only thought of it as something that flowed from Hyeonam and took root in my body.
I remembered the sword Hyeonam had used at the end. It had not been the persistent, clinging snake hidden within the softness I had learned, but a Sword Path that continued with endless gentleness. That must have been the original form that had flowed down from Zhang Sanfeng.
What kind of person had first forged such a sword?
As thoughts circled through my mind, Wi Jin-ak filled my empty cup. I accepted it without thought and brought it to my lips when he spoke with a faint laugh.
“Did your master teach you nothing but the sword? Your master was rather cruel.”
“He was not my master.”
The words burst roughly from my throat before I had time to think. My grip tightened around the cup.
Wi Jin-ak had surely said it without any particular meaning. Yet that careless remark struck me squarely while I was thinking of Hyeonam.
Master. I could not accept that word. To call the person who had dragged me into the mountains with my younger sibling’s life held hostage and treated me like a beast for ten years my master.
“I see.”
When I turned to him, Wi Jin-ak merely lifted his cup to his lips, his gaze resting indifferently upon the courtyard drowned in darkness.
His calmness settled my sharpened temper again.
When one thought it over, he had only called Hyeonam my master because he had taught me the sword. There was no reason to bristle at someone who could not know what lay behind it.
“My apologies.”
Wi Jin-ak gave a slight nod.
“Everyone has their own circumstances.”
We both emptied our cups in silence. For a while, only the rustle of reeds crossed the courtyard.
Everyone had their own circumstances. Did this man have reasons of his own for drifting all the way here?
This time, I lifted the bottle and filled the empty cups again. With the wine, the interrupted conversation resumed.
“So, how far can this Four Ounces Deflect a Thousand Pounds go?”
Wi Jin-ak paused with his cup halfway to his lips and shrugged.
“Well. Even I don’t know that much.”
After a sip, he continued.
“The only one I have seen use it was an old Daoist priest from Wudang.”
He went on to say that he had heard even the name Four Ounces Deflect a Thousand Pounds from that Daoist priest. An old Daoist priest from Wudang.
Curiosity stirred. I gently prompted him, asking who that priest was and how they had come to cross swords, but Wi Jin-ak only gave answers that were almost answers. He revealed little of substance.
Just what sort of person was he?
I did not know, but it seemed clear that this man knew more than he appeared to.
As I turned my empty cup in my hand, I recalled what had happened on the river a few days ago.
At the time, it had been enough to pick up bits and pieces from Yun Baek. So long as I reached Yeongpa safely, I had thought it was none of my concern how this whole affair unfolded.
But things were no longer like that.
The road by which my family could return was perilous, and even who stood on my side and who did not had grown unclear. At this rate, I would be nothing more than a small boat driven by storm waves across this board.
Only by knowing where the currents bent could I turn the helm in time.
“Brother Wi.”
I set down my empty cup and looked at Wi Jin-ak.
“I have a request.”
Wi Jin-ak stopped with his cup tilted in his hand and looked at me.
“Somehow, I have become involved in this affair, and I am in no position to pull myself free. But I know nothing of it, so all I can do is be swept along.”
I pushed my empty cup toward him.
“How does this world truly work? Could you tell me at least as much as you know, Brother Wi?”
Wi Jin-ak stared down at the cup that had been pushed toward him. Then he lifted his eyes from the cup to my face.
I met his gaze.
In the shadow of the dim lamp, only those deep gray eyes seemed to rise quietly and look into me. What could be reflected within them now?
We faced each other for some time. At last, Wi Jin-ak looked away and picked up the wine bottle. He filled my empty cup again and pushed it before me.
“First, tell me what you know.”
Thinking this had gone well, I laid out everything I had picked up from Yun Baek, without much order.
There were martial sects such as Wudang and Mount Hua Sect, while Nangong was a great clan passed down only through blood. There was a coalition called the Alliance. They competed for standing and became entangled over interests. That was the extent of what I knew.
Wi Jin-ak silently listened with his cup in hand. Once I finished, he took a swallow.
“You have grasped the rough framework.”
He pushed the empty cup back toward me and lightly tapped the table with one finger.
“Then let us add another layer. The martial sects and great clans you mentioned are scattered throughout the realm beyond counting. Yet among them are some major powers.”
Major powers. As I filled Wi Jin-ak’s cup, several names immediately came to mind.
“Wudang and Mount Hua Sect, then?”
“That is right. Along with them, the bald monks of Songshan, the beggars on the roads, and a few others came together to establish the Martial Alliance.”
Wi Jin-ak took the bottle from me and filled my cup as well.
“The groups that founded the Alliance are called the Nine Sects and One Gang. Nine martial sects and one gang.”
When I asked whether that gang was the Beggars’ Sect, he said it was. The beggar I had seen in Geonnyeong overlapped in my mind with Abok’s words.
Had Abok said that news from the martial world reached the beggars fastest?
I suddenly wondered whether I could ask those beggars about my family’s whereabouts, so I casually asked which was faster, them or Haomun.
Wi Jin-ak replied that both were spread across the realm so thoroughly that neither was much behind the other. But he added that the beggars only passed news among themselves and did not sell it for money, so it would be difficult for me to get what I wanted from them.
Embarrassed that he had seen through my intentions, I tossed back my cup. Then, deciding to get everything out while I had the chance, I searched through my thoughts again.
He had said Mount Hua Sect was also one of the Nine Sects and One Gang. Yet the Mount Hua Sect members I had seen at Seonharyeong had not hesitated to point their swords at Yun Baek, who belonged to the same Alliance.
When I asked about that, Wi Jin-ak shrugged as though it were nothing.
“Does being shut in the same pen make them of one mind?”
He tilted his cup and continued.
“Songshan and Wudang may have taken the lead in binding them together as the Martial Alliance, but groups too proud to yield anywhere would not lower their heads easily. Each is making its own calculations.”
“Then why did they bind themselves together at all?”
“Because the imperial court had begun to look unfavorably upon the martial world.”
The imperial court. It was a name I had not expected to hear.
But when I considered it, the pieces fit well enough. No matter how powerful the martial world might be, it could not compare to the imperial court. So that was why they had been bound into one pen.
Wi Jin-ak held out his empty cup, and I filled it again.
“So those major powers hurriedly put their heads together. They said, ‘We will keep our own affairs in order, so please do not interfere from above.’ And behind the scenes, they also cultivated a few ties.”
Self-governance on the surface, and avoiding blame beneath it. Only now did I begin to see the shape of the board.
I cautiously suggested that Mount Hua Sect must have been working toward some calculation of its own. But Wi Jin-ak seemed to have no leads in that direction either. He only handled his cup for a moment before shaking his head.
I emptied my cup and thought.
What did the Alliance want? What did it intend to do with the Dragon-Phoenix Cake Tea in Nangong’s hands?
If it meant to report Nangong’s crimes to the authorities, it had no reason to covet Nangong’s tea as well. The single cake I had recovered would be more than enough evidence that private tea had been diverted.
Yet Chae Wol had continued to pursue Nangong’s trail relentlessly. Since Yun Baek had sent me here, it seemed certain that the Alliance and Haomun were acting together.
If so, that meant it was the Alliance’s intention.
Why?
I laid out every fragment I had heard the previous night within my mind. The imperial court, the Martial Alliance, and beneath it the Nine Sects and One Gang, each pursuing its own interests. Then Nangong, in one corner of it all, who had diverted private tea and made a mess of things.
As I tried to fit the pieces together, one thing suddenly caught on my mind.
Perhaps they were not refraining from arresting Nangong despite having more than enough evidence. Perhaps the evidence was too grave for them to present carelessly.
What was Dragon-Phoenix Cake Tea? An item that was served only to the imperial court. If so, diverting it might not end as mere commercial wrongdoing by a single great clan.
If it became known that a group of armed people regarded even imperial goods so lightly, the imperial court would no longer tolerate the martial world. The self-governance of which the Alliance had spoken so loudly would collapse entirely.
Then what would the Alliance do? What would I do if I were in its place?
If it were me, I would gather every last cake of Dragon-Phoenix Cake Tea by any means before this matter reached the imperial court’s ears.
Then I would try to quietly bury Nangong’s affair within the martial world.
It was only a guess.
But once I saw it that way, the scattered pieces finally fit together as one.
And at last, I seemed to dimly see where I stood on this board.
When one thought it over, I had reached this understanding thanks to what Wi Jin-ak had explained. I turned toward him, intending to offer him my thanks.
His profile, submerged in the lamp’s shadow, revealed little of what he was thinking.
This unflappable man must also have drifted here by his own calculations. I only hoped his direction did not diverge too far from mine.
“Thank you, Brother Wi.”
With that hope in my heart, I offered him my filled cup. Instead of replying, Wi Jin-ak silently accepted it and drained the cup.
And as the cups passed between us, the moon only climbed higher without concern.
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